Seattle to Atlanta - The Ultimate Rebrand

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When looking around the league for possible rebrand options, there's one grouping that sticks out like a sore thumb.  Looking along the west coast, it's clear that there are just too many teams on that side of the continent.  In order to continue to grow the game and keep interest from fans all across the country, we need to move one of those franchises.  The easy selection is one of Vancouver or Seattle because, while it makes for a nice rivalry, that's just too much hockey for that close of quarters.  Because I once played for Vancouver, I'm letting them stay put and moving the Seattle Bears to Atlanta.

 

Why Atlanta, you might ask?  Well in the interest of full disclosure, I'm born and raised here.  But more than that, Atlanta has everything you want in a major sports city. We have the world busiest airport which is more than capable of handling the fan and team traffic, in addition to thousands of hotels in and around the city to accommodate the gargantuan needs of a franchise.  When you look at what other major institutions call Atlanta home, it's a no-brainer. World headquarters of Coca-Cola, Home Depot, and a slew of other Fortune 500 companies are all here, as well as the College Football Hall of Fame, the Georgia Aquarium, and Centennial Olympic Park. For rabid sports fans, there's the Braves, the Hawks, and the Falcons, as well as the numerous other sporting events Atlanta hosts, including the Super Bowl, the Final Four, and College Football National Championship.  

 

Now that we've established that Atlanta can physically do the job as a major city, it's time to talk about geography. There is a massive hole in the league for teams in the Deep South which needs to be rectified. I know hockey may not be a traditionally popular sport, but the love of the game has grown exponentially in the last decade with more and more professional hockey players coming out of the Peach State and surrounding areas.  For the actual branding, my first gut has to be the Peaches.  Georgia is the Peach State and the city of Atlanta has something like 125 different roads with the words "peachtree" or "peach" in the title.  If we go with peach, I'm envisioning a light peach colored peach with green stem, with some dark red accents on the fruit itself.  Across the peach would be two hockey sticks pointing in opposite directions at the bottom of the logo.  We could even go with Georgia Peaches if the league wanted to, as that's what we're quite famous for.  Another option would be the Atlanta Grits.  With the prominence of Waffle House in the Deep South, I could see a logo of a plate of buttered grits with two hockey sticks acting as fork and spoon on the plate.  This would be a great link to the cuisine and culture of the region and highlight one of the many delicious things that makes the South the South.  We could even partner with Waffle House as we'd have a natural strategic partnership to help market the brand and grow the popularity.

 

Regardless of which brand the league would decide to pick, two things are quite clear: first, Atlanta needs a team, and second, the league needs Atlanta.

 

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